The final series of the regular season meant nothing to the Yankees but everything to the Rays. New York dropped the first game thanks to a patchwork pitching staff, then were done in by a late Matt Joyce homer in the second game. Tampa won the final game of the season in dramatic fashion as the Red Sox lost to Baltimore in equally dramatic fashion, completing Boston’s collapse and sending the Rays to the playoffs as the wildcard team.

Please take a second to answer the poll below and give us an idea of how confident you are in the team. You can view the Fan Confidence Graph anytime via the nav bar above, or by clicking here. Thanks in advance for voting.

Given the team's current roster construction, farm system, management, etc., how confident are you in the Yankees' overall future?

CC has to step up tonight and, God willing, we can get a run or two off of Verlander early, get the crowd out of the game and take a lead into the 7th for Sori, Houdini and Mo…easier said, than done, right!!!

Game 3 tonight is a MUST win for us, especially with AJ on the mound tomorrow.

CP

Game 3 tonight is a MUST win for us, especially with AJPorcello on the mound tomorrow.

/Tigers fan’d

AndrewYF

Nah. Porcello is a more capable pitcher than AJ, and also pitches much better at home. Game 4 should be fairly easy for the Tigers.

Mike

Porcello BLOWS

Freddy Garcia’s 86 mph Heat

Garcia has better numbers at home than Scherzer does on the road.
Game 2 should be fairly easy for the Yankees.

Oh, wait.

CP

Porcello home ERA in 2011: 5.64
Porcello road ERA in 2011: 4.00

Not sure how that makes him much better at home…

http://twitter.com/JimIsBored JimIsBored (Jim S)

Silly people who think stats are actually a record of what happened on the field.

I love when people make blanket statements without having done any research at all. That home ERA is awful.

http://www.riveraveblues.com Mike Axisa

There’s no such thing as a fairly easy game against Yankees.

Jorge

Porcello was rushed to the big leagues and has occasionally shown signs of becoming a very good pitcher. How that clearly makes him more capable than AJ is beyond me, AJ’s erraticness notwithstanding.

Tiny Tim

Joe Girardi has just announced that Luis Ayala will start Game 4 in place of AJ Burnett.

Confidence hinges on tonight’s game. 10 if we win, 0 if we lose.

mt

Yes, Ayala will get the start for his “body of work”.

https://twitter.com/johnsc2000 JohnnyC

Nah, he’s got those photos Girardi wouldn’t want to see the light of day.

Reggie C.

8.

Cano isn’t going to hit a game changing hr each time up. The offense simply sputtered over 8 innings. Not sure if Scherzer could’ve pitched a BETTER game. Lets hope Verlander is just off his game enough to scratch out 2-3 runs.

The scout love given to Yank prospects is always fun to read. I’m not smarting over Gary Sanchez’s BA SAL ranking. Sanchez missed a bunch of time and the league was deep in quality hitters of similar age. I’d still take Sanchez’s ceiling over most of the hitters listed ahead of him.

ThisIsBaseball

I don’t understand who votes a “1” in these Fan Confidence Polls. How can you judge the overall future of the team to be a “1”? Could someone explain this to me? I can understand maybe you vote a 1 if you don’t think they’re going to win the DS, CS, or WS, or they’re worried that CC will opt out and not return to New York. But that’s more the immediate future, not overall future. That’s not 1, 3, or even 5 years out. Are they just trolls? Are they just trying to screw with the unscientific data? For those that voted “1” would you please explain the reasoning so I can understand it.

JFH

I have never voted “1”. But the problems with the poll are:

What is the definition of overall future (voters have a different opinion)? For me, the future applies to this season only, because there are too many variables with prospects, trades, injuries and free agents, to make an honest assessment for future seasons.

How does one utilize the scale?
The scale of 1 to 10 is viewed differently by many people too. I use it as it is defined, 1 being no confidence and 10 as very confident. However, I have seen people base their confidence scale in terms of the W-L record too.

ThisIsBaseball

Valid points. I look at the future as being beyond this season, but to the next two or three. In some past polls, I may not have been confident about the present state of the team, but was confident about the team’s future next season as well. We may not be able to know for sure how prospects will perform, but you can feel confident about how they are now and how that will translate into the big leagues. As for the scale, I see it defined as you do, too. With how you explain it, I guess someone could vote a 1 if they think we’re going to lose the DS, because of the screw-ups with the weather and our inability to hit with RISP.

Jorge

The overall future is the overall future. To me, that includes the current state of the team, the state of the team this year, and the state of the team five years from now.

To me, basing your score on what happens the next three games is silly. Anything can happen. The team did what they needed to do to get to the playoffs. Now that same cast has to get them to the next step.

Red Sox fans

they be trollin up in here

Mike

We have to get into Detroits Bullpen . . thats the key !

LarryM.,Fl.

I’m not as confident as during the regular season. The first game was great. CC looked excellent. Nova was great in relief. Hitting was timely. But Sunday’s game displayed that old ailment which creeps into some of the Yankee playoff series. Cano will be given a pass but Arod and Teix. are displaying the inability to get it done. Arod in both games and Teix. in the second game. I hope this will pass.

Now, Girardi decision to pick Ayala on the roster in the first place. Ayala failed miserably trying to finish a blow-out game and could not. Then Girardi brings him into a 4-1 game and he allows another run making the game 5-1. Ayala did not loss the game for us but a 4-3 scenario could have played out differently, just saying.

I watch and hope for the best tonight against a great pitcher. We have the bats. It can be done.

BK2ATL

I agree with this. Seems like if Cano didn’t have the night he had on Saturday, the outcome might’ve been very different, as the other mid-lineup hitters have yet to show up in this postseason.

Seems to happen each postseason, with a lineup as talent as ours, only one or two dudes are able to have any success in the postseason. When our guys are patient and work the counts, rather than pure hackery, there is OBP success. If the pitcher is wild, let him be wild. Cano, Tex, A-Rod, Jeter and Martin were worst culprits last night.

Posada has caught a lot of scorn on this board, but has been more productive than anyone not named Cano. He gets no props here on this board. Sad commentary.

Girardi’s decision-making last night dropped by confidence meter to a 7 from 8. I understand pinch-hitting Gardner for Gardner, but Chavez? Jones is the better option off the bench, lefty or righty. Followed by Montero.

This insistence on using Ayala when you have a rested bullpen is absurd. 2 runs down or 3 runs. Ayala has consistently given up runs in the last 3 games now. He’s not someone to use to waste innings in the postseason. It was not the reason we lost, but he made the hole deeper for our offense. Girardi just about admitted that he conceded the game to Detroit.

Once again, Girardi got outmanaged by another manager. Leyland showed that, other than Verlander, at the 1st sign of trouble, he’s pulling the pitcher. Everyone was on a short leash. Garcia, should have been pulled after the 1st 2 hitters made it aboard in the 6th.

You have the best bullpen in MLB in Wade, Logan, Soriano, Robertson, and Mariano to keep it close and possibly close it out. Today, CC is on the mound. I doubt that we’ll need much of our bullpen. Why not use them last night?

This is the postseason now, not May. Each game must be played like it’s the last game. We have the firepower in the bullpen and bench. Girardi didn’t use it wisely again last night.

David, Jr.

“Posada has caught a lot of scorn on this board, but has been more productive than anyone not named Cano. He gets no props here on this board. Sad commentary.”

How does his .315 OBP and .714 OPS make him more productive than Granderson or several other Yankees, for that matter? He was handed the full time DH job and couldn’t do that. He brings almost nothing else to the table and has to be one of the worst base runners you will ever see.

However, he has something left from the left side, which could come in handy against Verlander, so go get them Jorge!

ED

I’m confident, but I’m nervous at the same time. If that makes any sense at all.

http://www.riveraveblues.com Mike Axisa

That’s pretty much exactly how I feel.

Nuke LaDoosh

This is Baseball in October, even when we root for the best Baseball franchise on Earth.

Guest

Perfectly stated.

Sarah

Same.

dean

About winning the series about a 7……about the overall health of the organization moving forward…..10.

I like the Yanks chances still…..they just need to win 1 in Detroit to get it back to the stadium and both games 3 and 4 are toss ups to me.

David, Jr.

Defined as for this year’s results, still a nine, as I have been for a long time.

Part of that has already been achieved via winning the AL East. As far as this series, they aren’t playing a super team by any means. It is a team that won the laughable AL Central – 18 games against each of Minnesota, Kansas City, the White Sox and Cleveland. It is simply a matter of whether the Yankee stars like ARod, Jeter and Tex step up and do something. That is merely stating the obvious, but it is obvious.

Peepee Hands

I wouldn’t necessarily look at it as an AJ Burnett start, but a AJ Hughes-ett start, which honestly, might not ease your anxiety much better.

TLVP

Regardless of what people thing, the post season is pure luck most of the time. The Yankees have played 88 posts season games since the beginning of 2001 and they’ve won 53% which makes sense since they’ve had marginally better records that the other post season teams they’ve been playing over those 10 years.

The 1998 Yankees had a .704 regular season record. Their opponents had .543, .549 and .604 records. That would give them a mathematical 40% probability of winning the WS. The current team (against a probability weigthed set of opponents) has something like 14% of winning the WS.

Assuming that the average post season team is a 95 win team, a 90 win team would mathematically have 9.5% probability of winning the WS, a 95 win team 12.5%, a 100 win team 18%, and a 105 win team 24%. You’ll always be less likely to win than to win (until you become a 123 win team).

Single season post season results can not be the basis for answering thie question above.

When I give my 1-10 rating I only really are about one thing: will the organization be able to field a team that will get us to teh post season 90% of the time. If the answer is yes you have to be a 8,9 or 10 and where you end up is really down to how how blue the sky happens to be when you get asked teh question…

TLVP

Sorry, there was an error in my spreadsheet, a 90 win team has 8.8% probability, a 100 win team 17.1%, a 105 win team 22.5% and only a 125 win team becomes odds on favourite against the field (all assuming the field consists of 95 win teams)

Kosmo

You mean sorta like the 2001 Mariners ??

TLVP

Even a 116 win team would not be odds on favourites against the field unless the field is 7 89 win teams…

Jorge

9. Anything can, and will, happen in the next three games, so basing it on that is silly.

A team with a patchwork pitching staff handily won their division over the greatest team of alllll tiiiiime. An extra season and off-season brings new opportunities to address these issues through both internal and external solutions, and the Yankees, more often than not, make the right choices. Because they’re the Yankees, the mistakes don’t bite as much as they would for another franchise. This is why it’s just impossible to go lower than an 8 or 9 for this franchise.

Monteroisdinero

The Red Sox epic choke is still soothing me. Maybe if we lose tonight I will be more bummed but I’m still basking in the Sux collapse.

“Choke” the official drink of The Boston Red Sox.

Sorry Montero won’t get an ab in this series but at least Posada isn’t dead yet.

8 right now

Doug

I find it amazing how much people overreact to a loss. And a win for that matter.

Last week’s poll had the highest average rating of the season at 8.31. Today’s average rating is more than a full point less at 7.23. And it’s basically because they lost yesterday.

Isn’t this the same team as a week ago?

And, I betcha if they lost game 1 and won yesterday, it’d be close to 8 (if not more). And yet the series would still be tied 1-1, just like it is right now.